Animated film on 'tea pets' set to hit mainland screens

During a visit to Paris a few years ago, Gary Wang saw some "tea pets" - porcelain figures usually placed on tea trays - displayed in an antique shop there. It reminded Wang of his early years in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian province, where one of local pastimes was to drink tea and "raise" such pets.

The figurines, a part of China's tea culture - usually in the form of animals or ancient Chinese - need to have tea poured over them. And the longer this process continues, the more valuable they become.

"I could not stop thinking about what would happen if those little statues came alive," he says during an event in Beijing.